Using Examples From Three Or Four Scenes, Show How Shakespeare Deals With The Twin Themes Loyalty And Treachery

In Shakespeare’s play MacBeth we see many themes from loyalty and treachery to guilt and ambition. Shakespeare shows us how someone with extreme loyalty to king and country can change to utter treachery and betrayal against what he was so loyal to. Macbeth is a fearless warrior and an important lord, however as we see in the play his fatal weakness is ambition. As the play progresses he allows the witches’ prophecy and his …

…and worst in each other, as when we see the fierce loyalty of Lady Macbeth for her husband and the treachery in encouraging him to kill the king and helping in the cover up. Macbeth’s final and perhaps greatest treachery of the play seems to be that when told of his wife’s death he appears to think that it is an inconvenience when he is going off to war, and is totally emotionless.